The head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) sounded the alarm today over the fate of mountain gorillas living in a national park in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) after another four were found slaughtered late last month.

Janet Furaha fled the violence in her home area of Kaniola in the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) South Kivu province in May to live with relatives in Walungu, but she has often returned to tend her farm.

The Democratic Republic of Congo's Humanitarian Affairs Minister Jean-Claude Muyambo has said there were 75,000 homeless people in the two biggest cities, adding to a growing number of internally displaced people (IDPs) countrywide.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) today welcomed the conviction by a Congolese court of nine Government soldiers for killing 31 unarmed civilians last year.

A report Friday by the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights accuses the Democratic Republic of Congo of using excessive force in putting down protests in the Bas-Congo province early this year. More than 100 people were reportedly killed during the clashes.

While both the security forces and protestors claiming electoral fraud shared responsibility for deadly violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) earlier this year, the high death toll pointed to an excessive use of lethal force by the army and police, who are now enjoying impunity, the United Nations reported today.

According to Prof. Yakin Erturk, Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council on Violence against Women "the situation in the Kivus is the worst crisis I have encountered so far." Professor Erturk denounced this situation during the conference in Kinshasa on 27 July 2007.

A senior United Nations official today stressed that the world body is doing its utmost to get to the bottom of recent allegations of misconduct against peacekeepers in Cote d'Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), pledging to hold all personnel to the highest standards of behaviour.